New York, N.Y. -- There. Are we feeling better now? Are we feeling better after what needed to take place at Madison Square Garden actually did take place? Are we feeling better, knowing that the fellas who needed to put the ball in the basket Wednesday afternoon did just that?

Basketball life had been unsightly there for a while. Unsightly enough for some folks up in Central New York to view March as if it were a looming tar pit, burbling and hissing and just daring the Syracuse University Orange to dip its toe.

And why not? Having lost seven of 12 coming into the big city and lugging with them offensive performances that produced 39 points and 46 points and 53 points and 55 points and 58 points during that lumpy stretch, Jim Boeheim’s guys had done nothing to quiet the baying hounds back home.

Until, that is, on Wednesday when it played its first game in its last Big East Conference Tournament and outclassed Seton Hall 75-63 before 20,057 people who, ultimately, were given a glimpse of what SU believes itself to be.

“It felt real regular,” admitted Brandon Triche, the local kid who’d become the posterboy for that much-discussed Orange malaise. “Everybody was normal, and we haven’t been normal for a while. The way we played today was so vintage of the way we played early in the season. It felt good to be ourselves.”

Boeheim, the museum piece of a coach who actually got a bit wistful as he discussed his Garden sand that is now running out, had insisted just four days earlier that his club would all but wither if, specifically, Triche, his 6-foot-4 guard, and James Southerland, his 6-8 forward, remained in their offensive daze.

And, as if on cue, bang, the two seniors combined to make 13 of their 20 shots (65%) against the Pirates for a cumulative 37 points to thus inspire a sigh of relief from their boss, who had to have wondered when his squad would next connect the offensive dots. Or, perhaps, if it ever would.

Now, Wednesday's affair with Seton Hall, which had scored merely 46 points in 45 minutes the previous evening against South Florida, wasn’t always pretty. In fact, the Pirates -- who, done at 15-18, are hardly candidates for any bathing-suit contest -- twice led by 10 points in the first 10 minutes. Which was not only not good, but a wee bit unsettling.

But this Syracuse bunch, which missed more than 58% of its field-goal attempts during its 18 regular-season Big East contests and had batted .103 (3-for-29) from beyond the arc in its previous two starts, turned back the clock to that time when it flowed on offense and didn’t shoot jumpers as if hoisting bales of hay.

There was Triche with his 17 points, five assists and two steals. There was Southerland with his 20 points, 17 of which he collected in the first half. There was Michael Carter-Williams with his 14 assists and five rebounds. There was C.J. Fair with his 16 points and game-high eight rebounds. There was, even, Baye Moussa Keita and Rakeem Christmas combining for 14 points and eight rebounds out of the center position, which amounted to high, two-headed value.

There was, in other words, a show worthy of this monstrous month; a show that will likely need to be repeated more than once going forward if the SU goal is an extended shelf life.

And, oh, as the Hall faded and as the Orange surged -- specifically, as the Syracuse athletes shot 56% overall and 60% from three-point range -- a weight was lifted. And with ornery Pittsburgh, an outfit that held SU to 55 points on Feb. 2, up next in this tournament (lower-case “t” as opposed to next week’s, which will come with a capital “T”), the timing was beautiful.

“We hadn’t played well in a month, so we figured we’d ‘click’ in some game coming up,” said Triche. “So, maybe today was going to be the day, and it was. We don’t care what happened in all those other games. We just care about now. Why go back? That was all bad stuff.”

It wasn’t bold talk, no. It was more like assured talk. And it had been a long time coming. Remember, the Orange had once been 18-1 . . . and it had awakened on Wednesday morning at 23-8, which makes for a fairly serious comeuppance. So, some conviction had returned, but not at the expense of an understanding of time and place.

That was, after all, only Seton Hall on Wednesday. And that will be Pitt, a whole ’nother matter, today.

“They beat us pretty good,” offered Carter-Williams, citing that loss to the Panthers in their spiffy building some six weeks ago. “They got on the glass and just bullied us, really. We’re going to have to come to play. We’re going to have to crash the boards. But I think we’re ready. Our confidence is really high right now. We’re so together right now that I think any of us is willing to do anything to win.”

So? So maybe, just maybe, Triche’s bad stuff is gone forever. Maybe, just maybe, that Syracuse flow is back. Maybe, just maybe, this Orange team will show up in the Garden this afternoon and take on the Panthers with the collective hide of a rhino.

It’s March, after all. It’s that time of year.

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Here is the usual weekly “schedule of events” in Bud Poliquin’s corner of syracuse.com:

MONDAY -- By 8 a.m.: The daily column/commentary. By 11:30 a.m.: “How’d I Do?” By 6 p.m.: “Ask Me Anything” by submitting questions (to which I’ll give answers) on any sports-related topic to bpoliquin@syracuse.com. (Please include name and hometown.)

TUESDAY -- By 8 a.m.: The daily column/commentary. By 11:30 a.m.: “Coach’s Corner,” wherein readers can submit questions to any coach at any level in Central New York (and answers will be posted) to bpoliquin@syracuse.com. (Please include name and hometown.) By 6 p.m.: “The Video Store.”

WEDNESDAY -- By 8 a.m.: The daily column/commentary. By 11:30 a.m.: “The List.” By 6 p.m.: “E-Mail Of The Week,” wherein readers can submit legitimate essays/open letters/observations for purposes of posting to bpoliquin@syracuse.com. (Please include name and hometown.)